Test: NREL-Led Effort Addresses Problem of Plastic in Rivers

Dec. 12, 2023 by Author

Content: An avid scuba diver who also surfs and sails, Ben Maurer prefers the sights and sounds of the ocean to any other setting, so he leaves the waves and water behind reluctantly.

“I feel a lot more peace around the ocean,” said Maurer, whose home in San Diego is about a mile from Mission Bay and a couple more miles from the Pacific Ocean. “I feel a lot more excitement at the same time. It’s a really special place for me, and I’ve worked really hard in my life to stay near the water. The most miserable I’ve been is when I’ve been landlocked.”

A native of northern California who earned his doctorate in oceanography, Maurer has spent the last three and a half years with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which has its main campuses in landlocked Colorado. But Maurer works from home and over the past year has crisscrossed the country, boating down major rivers to investigate the ongoing problem of waterborne plastics. He is the principal investigator of the Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies project, otherwise known as WaterPACT.